


Seeing Red

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 00:18:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12047355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Written for @txf-prompt-box Prompt for September 1st to September 8th:Flukemen, shape-shifters and alien bounty hunters–these things are easy for Fox Mulder.  Buying tampons?  More of a challenge then he thought.bonus:  the fic is set before Mulder and Scully are romantically involved.double bonus: Mulder runs into a familiar face while making his purchase–someone he’d rather never see again if he could help it.





	Seeing Red

She was a medical doctor, with an admirable degree of clinical detachment. She had a strong poker face. She was not squeamish. She bore pain stoically. She was calm in a crisis and a powerful ally. She’d been dragged into his hellish quest and hadn’t quit yet. But he could sense humiliation coming off her like flames. Her face was flushed, her lips quivered until she rolled them together, her left eye flickered open and shut as she talked to him.  
“I’m sorry, Mulder. I haven’t…”  
“Scully, it’s okay.”  
“I usually get a backache, but there was no sign. Nothing.”  
“You don’t have to explain. Tell me what you need.”  
“I haven’t had a period for months. Not since I was returned. They haven’t filled up the vending machine in the women’s toilets and I haven’t got anything with me.”  
Her eyes were fixed on the desk. He wanted her to look at him but she wouldn’t. And he wouldn’t push it. He reached out and rubbed her arm.  
“I’ll get you something then drive you home so you can change.”  
“We’ll be late for the briefing.”  
“Scully,” he said, “if we don’t make it to the ‘annual let’s see how many ways we can humiliate Spooky Mulder by comparing his unit’s solve rate to the others in the Bureau’ I won’t hold it against you.”  
The product range was out of this world. Pads in various lengths, shapes and absorbency ratings, liners, tampons with and without applicators, maternity and night-time products and sanitary underwear. He sighed and wondered whether it would ever be appropriate to ask what brand of tampon Dana Scully preferred. Partners shouldn’t have secrets. But there were secrets and there were secrets. He knew Diana’s choice but shuddered even considering buying Scully that brand. It felt strangely like cheating.  
“Well, if it isn’t Spooky Mulder? Looking for the truth in the feminine hygiene aisle? If you don’t find it soon, you’ll miss the briefing.”  
He swung round to see Tom Colton grinning at him. Greasy hair swept back, a little more jowly, the suit a little better cut. He’d got on in the Bureau without a single grain of integrity. And Mulder saw red at the thought.  
“I’m just trying to work out which brand would absorb enough of your bullshit so that you don’t make a mess of yourself in front of the panel, Colton.”   
Colton crossed his arms, his grin dropping away. “Buying for Mrs Spooky?”  
Mulder turned away, felt the vein in his temple throb. “Run along, Colton. I saw the box of shiny apples for the teacher in the grocery section.”  
“You know, Mulder, it was pretty hard to know when Dana got her period, because with her it was like she had permanent PMT.”  
Mulder pulled a box from the shelf and gritted his teeth.  
Colton droned on. “She was always a little superior. Always moaning about how she had to work twice as hard as everyone else to get on because she was a woman, but what did she do? She just fucked the professor and got on that way.”  
The cardboard crumpled under his grip and he heaved in a hot breath before turning to face Colton.  
“And now she’s either fucking Skinner or fucking you. That’s just how the bitches of the Bureau roll.”  
Tampons rolled across the floor and a woman tutted as she pushed her trolley by.  
“Ah, so it’s Skinner then. Don’t worry, Spooky. It’ll be your turn soon.”  
Colton’s nose crumpled under his fist and he heaved in a hot breath before clutching the prized fist in his other hand. Blood oozed out of Colton’s face and Mulder grabbed a pack of pads from the shelf, ripped it open, pulled one out of its plastic wrap and pressed it up against his nose, adhesive side first.  
“I’ve always wanted to wipe the smile off your face, Tom.”


End file.
